Dying Thoughts
by Midnyght Saber
Summary: Shorn from his ghost half by an explosion in the lab, Danny falls into despair. With nowhere left to turn and an emptiness within him that can't be filled, he turns to the only option left in his eyes: Join his Phantom half in death.


**Disclaimer:** _Danny Phantom_ and all related characters and information are the property of Butch Hartman and Viacom International Inc. "Fade to Black" is the property of Metallica and Elektra Records (now owned by Warner Music Group).

* * *

It's been a week since Dad destroyed my life. I don't have the power to help anyone anymore…He killed my ghost half.

**Life, it seems, will fade away**

What's the point of living? I can't save anyone. I couldn't even save me.

**Drifting further every day**

Everyone's seen how isolated I've become. I've taken to locking myself in my room, and I haven't eaten in I don't even know how long.

Sam and Tucker don't even know I'm not Danny Phantom anymore. I can't bring myself to tell them.

**Getting lost within myself**

Thank whatever higher power that it's summer vacation, or my parents would be forcing me to go to school. It feels so good to let myself lose touch with reality, especially with how much reality hurts as of late.

**Nothing matters, no one else**

What do I care how they feel? Dad tried apologizing, though I sincerely doubt he knows what he actually did. I'm under the impression that he thinks I'm just tired of stuff in the lab blowing up.

That damn machine he built…Whatever it was, the aftershock it caused when it exploded ripped my ghost half to shreds. I always said that another accident in the lab would kill me.

I should really watch what I say, since karma seems to enjoy getting a kick out of torturing me.

**I have lost the will to live**

Sam even got hurt because of me, because I'm not who I should be…because I'm not Danny Phantom.

I lied and told her that I had been out of town that day, though I hadn't been. I had watched as some ghost I'd never encountered chased after her, screaming for her to summon the ghost child, and I saw Sam fight against it. It had vanished after some time, but not before leaving Sam with a broken arm and a bruised cheek.

What good am I if I can't even protect one of my best friends, let alone all of Amity Park?

**Simply nothing more to give**

As it is, I lucked out today - Jazz is busy with summer tutoring, and Mom and Dad got an out-of-state ghost tip. This gives me the time I need to take care of some last-minute business.

**There is nothing more for me**

I take one final, longing look around my room. A sudden thought crosses my mind that I may soon miss this room, but I dismiss the idea. I honestly doubt I'll even be able to feel things after a while.

**Need the end to set me free**

I've left a note on my computer desk. Basically, it looks like I ran away from home to commit suicide, but in actuality, I'm not. I'm dying here at home - more specifically, in the basement of my home.

Heading downstairs, I make sure that all the doors and windows are locked. The last thing I need is one of my friends trying to stop me.

**Things not what they used to be**

Looking around the lab, my parents' inventions are strewn about the room. How typical. My eye catches a flash of light off of a piece of metal, and my hand rests on the small green and silver cylinder - the Fenton Thermos. Nearly every ghost I had ever encountered had been captured in there at one time or another, save only a few. I had been one of them.

Lately, I'd been wondering what would have happened had I secured my ghost half within the Thermos. Maybe then, under the defensive shielding of the object, he could have survived the explosion.

**Missing one inside of me**

One final time, I close my eyes and reach within.

Just like before, nothing happens, and I remain human.

It's completely unbearable not being a hybrid anymore. I hate being fully human. Human stinks.

Sighing, I realize that Sam was right - my powers did make me unique.

**Deathly lost, this can't be real**

I tried lying to myself after it happened, assuring myself that I was only too scared to go ghost.

That I gave up two days after the accident. Half of me died that day - not that he wasn't already technically dead - but now he's dead forever.

**Cannot stand this hell I feel**

Letting my hand fall away from the Thermos, a sudden rush of hate courses through my body, a wave of animosity aimed at myself, and I bow my head, fighting against the pain.

Had I told Dad about being hybrid, he might have been able to warn me, to tell me to get out. Maybe he could have warned me of the danger that the machine presented. Instead, I chose to live a lie and a double life, and all I know now is pain and hate.

**Emptiness is filling me**

It's gotten worse over the past couple of days now that I can actually _feel _the gap inside of me, and it has torn me apart emotionally.

I've cried myself to sleep every night.

**To the point of agony**

It's unreal what my life is like now. I miss the ghost hunting. I miss the ridiculous pranks that I pulled. I miss the freedom that I had in being able to fly. I miss being able to protect this town, my two best friends at my side.

Most of all, I miss my best friend…Danny Phantom.

**Growing darkness taking dawn**

I've never felt this lost and confused before.

**I was me, but now he's gone**

Over the months, I'd come to regard Danny Phantom as my closest friend. Sure, we couldn't have conversations or anything like that, but he was there when I needed to vent or to get away from it all. He was a bit of sanity for me in this wacked-out world.

**No one but me can save myself, but it's too late**

My arrogance destroyed him, and now I can't go back to how it used to be.

All that I can do now is join him.

**Now I can't think, think why I should even try**

I'd considered re-creating the accident, but a new ghost form just wouldn't be the same. I need him back. I need Danny Phantom back as part of my life.

**Yesterday seems as though it never existed**

After all this time, my adventures seem like stupid childhood myths, and though I know better, none of it seems real anymore.

**Death greets me warm, now I will just say good-bye**

I take a deep breath as I run into the Portal, the icy cold sting of the Ghost Zone instantly paralyzing me. No one can reach me in here, and now, as my world begins to roll over to black, I can die in peace, joining another who left the world too soon…


End file.
